Welcome to our January 2017 newsletter!

After a refreshing break, it's back to business as usual at Soundbeam. We are busy shipping out orders to Canada, Singapore, Taiwan as well as closer to home. It's fascinating to hear about how Soundbeam is being used in these countries. We hope you enjoy our first newsletter of 2017!

Here's to an exciting year ahead,

Cindy, Tim, Adrian and the Soundbeam team

A short documentary film about music therapy by students from the University of the West of England. Soundbeam is featured, but the star is Big Jeff!

A new website called Inspire-music.org has been launched. It's a a place for everyone involved in music education – school based, community based, formal, informal, non formal - to be inspired and to think about what really works. Inspire-music has been created by a National Working Group chaired by Professor Graham Welch, supported by Programme Director Katherine Zeserson, and funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

On the website there are case studies drawn from a wide range of contexts, including school classrooms, early years settings and community locations. There are examples of inspiring work with children and young people, led by classroom teachers, community musicians and other practitioners. they are examples of effective learning and teaching – they tell local stories in which positive outcomes are achieved. They are not meant to be comprehensive of all effective practice across the country, but rather to offer examples that illustrate the likely nature of this effective practice. The cases represent an initial set; over time we hope to add and expand these to illustrate further the rich diversity that characterises effective music education in England. Below is a case study using Soundbeam

In this residential project, Soundbeam was used alongside traditional instruments to engage and motivate students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to be more creative in their music making, increasing attention and concentration spans and nurturing working more collaboratively.

Top tweet this month from Enrinco Zanella

Star Soundbeam player!Nominate your star Soundbeam player and send us a short film or picture and the reason why you're nominating them. Each player featured in our newsletter will receive a Soundbeam t-shirt!